A THEORY OF CONGRESSIONAL ORGANIZATION

Abstract

The increasing size of committees in the House of Representatives has never been satisfactorily explained. By exploring the source of two previously unexamined anomalies within the existing theory of congressional committee size, this article develops an alternative explanation of the phenomenon. The new theory emphasizes the importance of membership motivations and organizational constraints, and it proposes two factors to account for committee expansion. One factor is the existence of personal and group “rights” to certain committee seats, coupled with the disruption produced by biennial change in the House party ratio. The second factor is membership demand for dual committee assignments, coupled with the constraints placed on assignment pairs. A model based on these factors is found to have substantial explanatory power. Because the analysis suggests inherent organizational forces for committee expansion, the findings have important implications for committee reorganization and reform.